All Things Ranching and Farming: "Western Skies"

Hello again! Sorry it’s been a while but this little intern is exhausted! Mostly we have just been feeding cows and fencing. Currently, we are feeding 2500 head of cattle. Some of those are sale heifers, some replacement heifers, some bulls, and the rest are the momma cows. In about a week, the replacement heifers will be moved into a pasture so we won’t be feeding them. Once the cows start calving and things pick up, they are moved into a different pasture that is only used once a year (calving time) so we won’t be feeding those ones either. So at the moment we are feeding 46 bales a day and it takes two tractors half the morning. I am the driver of one of those tractors!!

Last week I had some excitement during a rather dull and monotonous task of burning the twine off the haybuster. You can probably see where this is going. It was a bit of a breezy day and we use a thing that looks like an electric branding iron to burn the twine off. While we are doing this, we are supposed to have a bucket of water nearby (which I did) in case of a fire. Well, one minute I am burning the twine and the next a gust of wind takes hold of an ember and starts the whole haybuster on fire! Flames went sky high! Just kidding J There was a fire but it didn’t engulf the whole haybuster. If you can imagine, I did panic a little and threw the bucket of water on the flames. Well it didn’t put them all out so of course, I panicked some more and started yelling “Haybuster fire! Fire in the Haybuster!” Then I ran into the shop and grabbed this big huge fire extinguisher in hopes that it would solve the problem. I aimed, I squeezed, and nothing. Nothing came out! Meanwhile, the fire is still burning and the wind is still blowing and I am still panicking. Purrrrfect. So here I am, running around like a chicken with my head cut off, shrieking about a fire and trying to find another fire extinguisher. I finally found a little bitty one in the tractor, pulled the pin, aimed, squeezed, and Wha-la! The fire was put out! And the best part…no damage!

Now I’ll tell you about my exciting day yesterday. While I was feeding, I was interrupted and told that I was going up to Eagle Creek (where the heifers are) for the day to help out. It’s a bit like organized chaos up there. What more can you expect out of 600 first time mothers? When I got up there, I was handed a pitch fork and a scoop shovel and was told to get started on cleaning pens. Nothing too exciting about that. I only had to wait about 20 minutes before a pasture rider came over the radio and said he was bringing one is that was backwards. Backwards calf = C-section!!! I have never seen one performed before so I took lots of pictures! Its really quite simple. They just got her in the chute, flipped her over, secured her legs, shaved and washed down her belly, cut her open, and pulled the baby out! I got some pretty neat pictures and the good thing was that it didn’t stress the calf out at all! Momma walked out of the OB room and baby was up sucking within 20 minutes. Just about the coolest thing I’ve ever seen! Throughout the course of the day, I pulled 4 more calves, cleaned many, many pens, and processed a few calves. Lets just say that I didn’t have any trouble falling asleep last night. I am not complaining though because I can’t remember a more exciting day!

Like I said, we are just feeding, fencing, and waiting for cows to pop. We only have 2 calves. Here are some pictures of fencing, and moving cows.!